"Witchy Washy" - September Soap Challenge

  I am so happy with this month's soap challenge hosted by Amy of Great Cakes Soapworks. The technique is called the Clyde Slide and was invented by Clyde Yoshida of Vibrant Soap. Clyde creates some absolutely beautiful pieces of usable art and I was very excited to learn his secrets. I wanted to do something fun and "vibrant" for this one so I decided to channel my absolute FAVORITE holiday, Halloween!! It is only a month and a half away, after all. 

  I chose to use "Snow Witch" fragrance oil from Mad Oils because, well, Witches and Halloween go hand in hand. The color choices were very easy this time. I chose to use The Maniacal Pea, Grape Nehi, Orange Crush (all from Mad Oils) and Black. These are the perfect colors for a Witchy soap. Here they are mixed in a small amount of my soaping oils.

  Let me talk about my soap recipe for a minute. Most of the challenges are very intricate swirls and you need lots of time to work with them. It took me a long time to find a recipe that would stay fluid long enough but not so thin that the colors got muddled. A lot of people like to use tallow or lard in their recipes and I have heard that it makes a nice bar of soap and you have plenty of time to work with the batter. While I am not against using lard or tallow in soaps, I choose to stay with vegetable based oils. I use olive oil, coconut oil, and avocado oil in all of my soaps. Sometimes it's all 3, sometimes it is a combination of two. It depends on the results I am looking for. Since I know it's a slow moving recipe, I used all 3 oils and I add Sodium Lactate. It works perfectly and the results are a really nice, hard, bubbly bar of soap!

  Ok, back to the challenge. Once I got my lye solution and my oils to the right temperature (I go with around 90* F), I mixed them together and brought the batter to emulsion. There are different degrees of what soapmakers call trace, It is the stage when the oils and the lye have started to react and the saponification process starts. To get a nice swirl, you want a thin trace or else it is just too thick to work with. I seperated the batter into 4 equal parts and added the appropriate colors. Then the fun began! For this technique, you utilize an in the pot swirl but you don't swirl! I used the purple as my base and then poured the black in 2 spots on the side of the pot. I then poured the orange in the same spots. Half of the green went on the side between the black and orange pours and the other half was drizzled on the opposite side. I didn't get a picture of the pot after I poured them all back in but I wish I had. After you get all of the colors poured back into one pot, then you pour it straight into the mold. This is what makes the "Clyde Slide". I started at one end and slowly worked my way back and forth until the mold was full. You never know what you're gonna get but it looks really cool. Here it is after I poured it into the mold.

  I had some left over black, orange, and green batter so I poured them on top in straight lines and then poured a very thin mica line between them. 

  I know it looks messy but the end result was really cool. I kinda wish I had poured the black in the middle but I was just so excited, I wasn't thinking straight!! So after getting my lines poured, I took my handy dandy chopstick and did the mantra swirl on just the top. I love this look as it's kind of a chevron pattern.

  I also decided that I wanted this soap to go through gel phase completely because it makes the colors very bold and deep. I stuck it in the oven on 150* F and left it on for about 10 minutes (would have been longer but I was running out the door to pick a kiddo up from school). I left the soap in the warm oven for about 2 hours which was plenty long for it to go through gel. By that evening (after picking my husband up from the airport. It was a busy day!) the soap was ready to cut!! My jaw dropped when I saw the results. The patterns that are made by doing this type of swirl are just amazing! I hope everyone likes it as much as I do. So here it is.... "Witchy Washy"

  Any one else see the Witch's hat??? I am absolutely in love with this. Each cut revealed a different design and each one is just as awesome as the last. I truly enjoyed this challenge and will be implementing this technique in the future. 

Side note:  I had more batter than would fit in my mold so I poured it into another mold and added spiders! How fun!!

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